When the Dog Catches the Car

When it comes to Republicans one has to wonder just how stupid stupid is. Who knew creating a health care program was so complicated, Donald Trump asked recently. Considering we are only in March and we are talking about Republicans, I am quite sure that stupid is more stupid than we thought because anyone paying attention over the last seven years knew creating a health care plan is extremely complicated.

Which is what the Republicans in Congress are finally discovering. Their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as GOP leaders like to say, shows that ignorance, stupidity, and hypocrisy knows no bounds when it comes to Republicans and their voters.

Yes, I know we are being told by liberal pundits and others that we liberals should not assail Trump voters, that we should not anger them any more than we have with out elitist views. We should, as the pundits like to say, separate the voters from the candidate and his buffoonery in an effort to bridge the gap that keeps so much of America divided. We must embrace the pain of the white working-class. Criticism of that forgotten America just drives them closer to the Trumps of the world.

Well, making nice with such people will not be easy. They asked for this, and they now have what they have desired for years.

Consider that Kentucky, for example, elected two Republicans to the U.S. Senate, both of whom declared that they would vote to repeal Obamacare. The people who sent Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell to Washington want Obamacare repealed, in part because many of them see it as socialism run amok. Those voters hate Obama and Obamacare.

Yet, they embrace the Affordable Care Act, which gave many Kentucky voters insurance for the first time in their lives. That the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are one in the same somehow escaped those voters for years.

Kentucky, when it had a Democratic governor, created a very efficient and effective state health portal for those seeking health insurance. The state chose to expand its Medicaid program, and its workers signed up thousands of people who never had health care coverage..

So what did Kentucky voters do?

They elected a Republican governor who is pushing to make the Affordable Care Act and Kentucky's state of the art heath insurance web portal as ineffective as possible. They re-elected McConnell to the Senate. Now many of those same voters fear they will lose their newly obtained health care coverage.

You can't make this stuff up. The Republicans are set to give those Kentucky -- and all the other Republican -- voters what they have been clamoring for for years: A repeal of Obamacare.

The House plan released Monday shows that while Republicans knew how to use a hatred of Obama and Obamacare to generate votes, they have no idea of how to create a health care plan that will not result in millions of people losing insurance or finding themselves unable to afford coverage, putting much of the nation back where it was in those dark days before Obamacare.

It is not just in Kentucky.

Republicans across the country voted again and again for men and women who promised to kill Obamacare. Yet, those voters are now wondering how a loss of Obamacare will affect them and their loved ones. Will Nana be able to stay in her nursing home if Medicaid is block granted? Will I be able to afford my health insurance if my government subsidy is only $3,000 a year?

The list of questions go on and on. The answers are simple.

If Republican legislators have their way Nana will not be able to stay in her nursing home, and you will not be able to afford health care coverage. So be thankful. You are getting what you wanted since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010.

The so-called socialism that is Obamacare will be decimated under the GOP plan released Monday by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Subsidies to working class families will be cut dramatically. The wealthy will get the biggest breaks. Medicaid will eventually be slashed under block granting.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Republican legislators show a total disdain for helping the American people, and they do so under the guise of protecting "freedom."

Affordable health insurance for all Americans is not a right, according to Republicans, but a privilege. If a person wants health coverage, especially someone who is not well off, then that person needs to get rid of his or her iPhone to pay for health insurance. In the world of Republicans everything is a trade off in which the only people who should get government help are the people who need it the least.

Luckily, some Republicans, including Senators Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have assailed the House "replacement" plan because of its threat to Medicaid, which was expanded in their states.

But others, such as Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, attacked the House plan as not being draconian and heartless enough. Paul labeled the House plan "Obamacare lite." Other conservatives called it "Obamacare 2.0."

The Koch brothers and their network of billionaire sponsored "grassroots" organizations are set to attack the Republican plan as not going far enough to stamp out the socialism of Obamacare. The Heritage Foundation, the organization that came up with the individual mandate and created the blueprint that became Romneycare and later Obamacare, has already gone on the attack in hopes of destroying any remnants of the plan it created as an alternative to Hillarycare in the 1990s.

Of course much of this may be a way for Republicans to provide coverage for those members who now realize it was easier to promise a repeal of Obamacare when there was no chance of it happening than it is to actually come up with a replacement plan that does not harm constituents.

Either way there are some basic things we must remember. The year is less than three months old, and the ignorance, stupidity, and hypocrisy of  Republicans and their voters will be on full display for some time to come.

Where's Les McCann When We Need Him?

Whenever I hear a Republican speak these days I have a serious Les McCann moment.

You know the one that McCann, along with Eddie Harris, gave the world at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

"I love the lie and lie the love/A-hangin' on, with push and shove/Possession is the motivation that is hangin' up/The God-damn nation looks like we always end up in a rut (everybody now!)/Tryin' to make it real -- compared to what." 

Since Jan. 20, 2009, Republicans have repeatedly shown that they are a callous and irksome lot that loves the lie. Don't simply take my word. Look at the GOP's six-year policy of obstructionism that was hatched as Barack Obama was being sworn in as the nation's 44th president.

For years Republicans lied about the President's economic policies and the Affordable Care Act, saying each would destroy the economy. Now that we have seen more than 50 months of steady job growth -- 3.1 million jobs in 2014 alone -- since 2011, a drop in the unemployment rate to below 6 percent, records set on the stock market, soaring profits by the nation's major corporations, and GPD growth we haven't had since before 2008, Republicans seek to take the credit, saying it was the anticipation of a Republican takeover of Congress this year that pushed the economy forward. Of course, they still lie about the Affordable Care Act and their so-called replacement plan, which seeks to gut the ACA and would leave millions of Americans without health insurance -- again.

But if those six years of Republican "no's" and obstructionism in Congress are not enough then look at the actions of the Republican party since it expanded its majority in the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate after the 2014 midterm elections. One can also look at the actions of Republican governors and state legislatures around the country. Whether it is the doubling down of broken fiscal and tax policies in Kansas, Wisconsin, or Louisiana, the ridiculous comments of state legislators on what constitutes rape, or efforts to further destroy unions, the evidence is there.

Let's look at Congress first. After six years of making Congress as dysfunctional as possible and lowering its favorability rating to single-digits at various times by shutting down the government, playing brinksmanship with the debt ceiling, and blocking all meaningful legislation, the first bills the newly empowered Republican majorities voted in the House and Senate do nothing to break the logjam of do-nothingness in Congress or help the American people who continue to face economic hardship six years after the economy collapsed.

Instead, they have voted to put the Federal Government on the hook again for reckless banking practices that the Dodd-Frank financial regulations sought to curb; have voted to repeal or alter the Affordable Care Act for the 56th time; pushed through a law that would thwart Obama's actions to block the unnecessary Keystone XL pipeline project; have voted that future analysis of tax bills should use a questionable formula that would make all tax cuts seem good; and have added a poison pill to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill in an effort to block the President's executive order granting a reprieve to immigrants whose parents brought them into the country illegally as children.

Oh yeah, we also have a Republican U.S. Senator who says restaurants should be able to "opt-out" of the requirement that employees must wash their hands after using the restrooms, and several so-called Republican doctors who equivocate on the importance of vaccinations to stem preventable diseases that have the potential to kill.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

We also have several Republican governors doubling down on failed tax and fiscal policies that have stymied economic growth in their states and have blown large holes in their budgets. With the 2016 presidential election season already in progress, Republicans have said that the next president should be a governor, someone with executive experience.

Yet, a look at those Republican governors gives us Bobby Jindal whose home state is facing a $1.6 billion budget hole this year and in the foreseeable years because of tax cuts, budget gimmicks, one-shots, and a drop in oil prices; Scott Walker whose home state faces so large a budget gap that he plans to cut about $300 million from the state's vaunted public college system; Rick Scott who faces multiple claims of ethics violations, the most recent for allegedly firing the top state law-enforcement official investigating the governor for wrongdoing; Chris Christie -- a bellicose, bullying, buffoon -- who has more scandals and junkets from businessmen than any other governor should ever have and still be walking free; and Jeb Bush who we now know was a hashish smoking alleged bully who wants other people's kids incarcerated for something that he did and seemed to enjoy as a teenager.  

To add further insult, Republican-led state legislatures are filled with "whacko birds" that have no idea of what constitutes rape. According to one Republican state legislator, while rape of a woman is ugly, it becomes less ugly if the woman gets pregnant. Then there is the Republican legislator who wonders why it is considered rape to have sex with an unconscious woman.

And we can't forget the religious right, which is trying to change state laws to make discrimination legal as long as one can cite religious belief. Yes, Les McCann was right.

"Church on Sunday, sleep and nod/Tryin to duck the wrath of God/Preachers fillin' us with fright/They all tryin' to teach us what they think is right/They really have to be some kind of nut (I can't use it!)/Tryin to make it real -- compared to what."